From Cuban Missile Crisis to failed ‘reset’: US doesn’t learn lessons

John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring.
You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1

Former United States President John F. Kennedy (R) meets with Nikita Khrushchev, former chairman of the council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, at the U.S. Embassy residence in Vienna, Austria in this June 1961 handout image. November 22, 2013. (Reuters) / Reuters

With relations between Russia and the United States at their lowest point since the Cold War, this month marks the 52nd anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world moved perilously close to nuclear Armageddon.

Then, as now, the
underlying reason for the breakdown in relations between East and
West was US imperialism.

I remember speaking to my father about the Cuban Missile Crisis
once. At the time of the crisis in October 1962, he was stationed
in Cyprus with the Royal Air Force. Britain had its Vulcan
nuclear bombers based there at Akrotiri, where the RAF maintains
a base to this day. I remember him telling me how in those
fateful days the base was put on a war footing and how everyone
believed there was going to be a nuclear conflict between the
Western and Eastern blocs.

The crisis unfolded between 15-28 October, after the US detected
the presence of Soviet ballistic missiles on Cuba along with
hundreds of Soviet technicians and thousands of military
personnel. US intelligence had received information on the
presence of the missiles and Soviet military personnel on the
island from various sources in the days leading up. It was
confirmed by surveillance pictures taken by a U-2 spy plane
flying over Cuba on October 14.

The motivation commonly cited by historians when it comes to why
the Soviets wanted to station missiles on Cuba was to nullify the
advantage enjoyed by the US when it came to the size of its
nuclear arsenal, at the time significantly larger than the Soviet
Union’s, and also meeting the threat posed by US nuclear missiles
based in Italy and Turkey, which gave the US a first strike
capability. Meanwhile Cuba wanted the missiles to deter a future
US invasion, or US-sponsored invasion, after the previous attempt
to do so at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 - an event known in Cuban
history as the Battle of Playa Giron – was defeated.

Conspicuously absent from the aforementioned is the desire of the
Soviet Union to stand with Cuba against US aggression on the
grounds of solidarity and internationalism.

In their book, ‘The Untold History of the United
States’, authors Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick explore the
inner machinations of the Soviet and US governments at the time.
The leaders of both countries, Nikita Khrushchev and John F
Kennedy, had as much to worry about from hawks on their own side
than from each other as a dangerous game of brinksmanship
unfolded over the following thirteen days.

Stone/Kuznick write: “Kennedy hoped to stop the Soviets
before the missiles had been fully installed. He conferred with
his advisors to determine his options. On October 19, he met with
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The majority, led by Le May (Curtis Le
May head of the US Air Force), favored an air strike to destroy
the missiles. Le May advised, ‘The Russian bear has always been
eager to stick his paw in Latin American waters. Now we’ve got
him in a trap, let’s take his leg off right up to his testicles.
On second thought, let’s take off his testicles, too.’”

Le May and others within the US Joint Chiefs of Staff were
confident that the Soviet Union would not respond to an attack on
Cuba. Kennedy was not convinced by this, flagging up the
vulnerability of Berlin to a Soviet response. This possibility
failed to deter Le May, however, a man for whom the only good
Soviet was a dead one. On the contrary, he relished the prospect
of all out military confrontation, viewing the crisis as not only
an opportunity to wipe out Cuba but also the Soviet Union.

Kennedy finally decided to implement a blockade of Cuba, which he
subtly described as a “quarantine” to distract from the
fact that it was an act of war. His decision to do so met with
undisguised disdain from the hawks within his administration, led
by Le May. “This is almost as bad as the appeasement at
Munich,” the air force general declared in one meeting.

Tensions grew over the following days as the stand-off continued.
According to released documents of the period, the Soviets
decided on October 25 to remove the missiles to avert conflict as
Soviet supply ships approached Cuba and the cordon of US
battleships and submarines policing the blockade. However the
Soviet leadership was equally determined they would only do so if
the US agreed to the quid pro quo of removing US missiles from
Turkey as part of a mutual agreement.

Before the Soviet leadership could act on their decision to
remove the missiles, they received intelligence, false as it
turned out, that the US was seriously considering an invasion of
Cuba. This resulted in a letter from Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev to President Kennedy on October 26, which qualifies as
an example of the solidarity and internationalism which dictated
Soviet policy towards Cuba, and at the same time the hypocrisy of
Washington. The letter reads in part:

“If you are really concerned about the peace and welfare of
your people and this is your responsibility as President, then I,
as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, am concerned for my
people. Moreover, the preservation of world peace should be our
joint concern, since if, under contemporary conditions, war
should break out, it would be a war not only between the
reciprocal claims, but a worldwide cruel and destructive
war.

Why have we proceeded to assist Cuba with military and
economic aid? The answer is: We have proceeded to do so only for
reasons of humanitarianism. At one time, our people itself had a
revolution, when Russia was still a backward country. We were
attacked then. We were the target of attack by many countries.
The USA participated in that adventure. This has been recorded by
participants in the aggression against our country. A whole book
has been written about this by General Graves, who, at that time,
commanded the US Expeditionary Corps. Graves called it ‘The
American Adventure in Siberia.’

We know how difficult it is to accomplish a revolution and
how difficult it is to reconstruct a country on new foundations.
We sincerely sympathize with Cuba and the Cuban people, but we
are not interfering in questions of domestic structure, we are
not interfering in their affairs. The Soviet Union desires to
help the Cubans build their life as they themselves wish and that
others should not hinder them.

You once said that the United States was not preparing an
invasion. But you also declared that you sympathized with the
Cuban counter-revolutionary emigrants, that you support them and
would help them to realize their plans against the present
Government of Cuba. It is also not a secret to anyone that the
threat of armed attack, aggression, has constantly hung, and
continues to hang over Cuba. It was only this which impelled us
to respond to the request of the Cuban Government to furnish it
aid for the strengthening of the defensive capacity of this
country.”

The key factor responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis was a
belief which poisoned the thinking of the US ruling elite, and
which continues to poison it to this day, that Latin America was
their property, available to be exploited for the gain of US
corporations at the expense of its people and their rights of
national sovereignty. This sense of entitlement, steeped in
racism, was enshrined in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. The Cuban
Revolution of 1959 was significant precisely because it
symbolized the assertion of the right of the people of Latin
America to forge their own path, free of the yoke of Washington.
As such, it marked a dangerous precedent in the eyes of the US,
one that has informed its decades-long attempt to undermine,
terrorize, and starve the Cuban Revolution out of existence ever
since.

When the crisis finally ended peacefully the entire world heaved
a sigh of relief. There was anger on the part of the Cuban
leadership towards its Soviet ally over the lack of consultation
and input when it came to the decision to remove the missiles. In
particular, Fidel Castro was angry that the status of Guantanamo
Bay was not included as part of the agreement to end the crisis.
Guantanamo has remained occupied by the United States ever since.

The Soviet leadership did, however, manage to secure a pledge
from the administration not to invade Cuba, in addition to the
withdrawal of US Jupiter missiles from Turkey a few months later
– though as part of the deal the Soviet Union agreed to keep it
quiet, so as to spare the Kennedy administration criticism from
hawks within its own ranks and the US media.

The best summing up of the crisis after it ended came from Soviet
Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who said: “They talk about who won
and who lost. Human reason won. Mankind won.”

With chaos and conflict raging across the globe as these words
are being written, as then so today we are still living in a
world suffering due to the lack of democracy not so much
“within” states as “between” states.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.